WCCN Partner Agencies: Improving the Lives of Rural Coffee Farmers

 

Cesar Gonzalez, photo by Michael Kienitz

CECOCAFEN is the Central Coffee Cooperative of the North. The cooperative’s commitment to improving the lives of small coffee farmers and selling coffee of the highest quality on the international fair trade market is evident in all they do.

This association of 12 cooperatives markets and sells quality coffee grown by more than 2,500 families from remote, rural communities in northern Nicaragua. CECOCAFEN sells 97% of its coffee through fair trade markets, providing higher incomes for members.

Income from fair trade coffee sales allows CECOCAFEN to implement numerous programs that improve the co-op members’ quality of life, such as a microfinance program for women that provides business training, loan opportunities to start or grow a business, opportunities to save money and scholarships for members and members’ children from the elementary to the university level.

With WCCN’s $500,000 loan, CECOCAFEN purchased coffee from its members and will process, dry and sell the coffee to international fair trade organizations such as Equal Exchange and Cooperatives Coffee.

On a recent trip to Nicaragua, Cesar Gonzalez explained the advantages of belonging to a co-op that is a member of CECOCAFEN: “If we were not organized in a co-op and without CECOCAFEN, we would be out of the international market because the international market does not recognize small farmers. In the beginning, we sold our coffee at the lowest price, but now our coffee is of the highest standard of Nicaragua and all is sold internationally on the fair trade coffee market for the highest price.”

Veronica Zavalla, a member of La Fem. photo by Michael Kienitz

Fundación Entre Mujeres (La FEM) is a Nicaraguan non-governmental organization empowering rural women of all ages through education and access to land for farming.

Women who join La FEM learn how to read and write and have the opportunity to collectively farm coffee or hibiscus on land owned by La FEM. With their profits from collective farming, the women can support their families and buy their own land. Members include women in their 50s and 60s who are proud to have learned how to read and have the resources to be economically independent for the first time in their lives.

“It’s important for women to hold land. It’s hard for them to have a life based on equality without it,” says La FEM Director Diana Martinez.

La FEM also operates a mobile health clinic and provides women’s rights workshops and sustainable agricultural programs, including a project in which women learn to raise pigs, cows, chickens and roosters.

WCCN lent Just Coffee of Madison, Wisconsin, $25,000 to purchase La FEM’s organically grown coffee.

COMSA won a national environmental award for promoting sustainable agriculture and protecting nature.

 

 

COMSA, Café Organico Marcala SA, is a private company with profit sharing and a governance structure similar to a cooperative. The company is located in Marcala, a municipality of La Paz in southwest Honduras. Here, coffee is grown in ideal conditions and recognized worldwide for its high quality.

COMSA serves more than 500 small-scale farmers, the majority of whom are indigenous Lencas cultivating less than 6 acres each. COMSA is nationally recognized for its environmentally sustainable, organic, agricultural practices.

WCCN is loaning COMSA $300,000 to purchase and process its members’ coffee before exporting it to fair trade coffee buyers. For every pound of fair trade coffee sold, COMSA receives an additional bonus that the company is investing in the cooperative’s infrastructure and in local development. The organic coffee farmers have, for example, financed an emergency generator for a hospital and established a scholarship fund to ensure the education of their sons and daughters.

The burlap bag -- in which coffee is exported -- highlights that the coffee is certified organic, fair trade and from Marcala, Honduras.

RAOS, Cooperativa Regional Mixta Agricultores Organicos de la Sierra, was founded in 1997. It was the first cooperative of small and medium-scale organic coffee farmers in Honduras.

RAOS pioneered organic farming in Honduras, overcoming doubt and lack of information to unite members in the commitment to organic, sustainable farming of coffee and other products, such as honey and pollen. Most RAOS members farm on extremely steep terrain. Shade trees, including fruit and native forest species, are used to improve biodiversity and promote soil conservation.

RAOS’ success in improving members’ standard of living can be measured in increased membership, from 90 members in 2006 to 500 members today. The average farmer served by RAOS is cultivating only 7 acres.

WCCN lent RAOS $300,000 to purchase coffee from its members and will process, dry and sell the coffee to international fair trade organizations.